Western Digital External USB 2.0 120GB Hard Drive (WD1200B005-RNx)

by Western Digital

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 4.3 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0000AW0QQ
• Item model number: WDXU1200BBRNN
• Average Customer Review: 2.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: July 24, 2003

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fast and Easy Set Up, Good Value, December 18, 2003

By 

Cathy Stucker "IdeaLady.com" (Sugar Land, TX USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Western Digital External USB 2.0 120GB Hard Drive (WD1200B005-RNx) (Personal Computers)

A recent scare (when I feared I had lost the hard drive on my laptop) gave me the sense of urgency I needed to start backing up my entire drive, not just the data files. The thought of having to reinstall all those programs, modify all my settings, etc., was too depressing to contemplate.

I immediately went looking for an external hard drive to back up both my desk top and laptop computers. An external drive would allow me to easily move the HD between the two machines. The USB connection is easy, and with WinXP, there were no driver issues. The instructions with the HD told exactly how to partition the drive, so I set it up with a partition for each PC. I was up and running in no time.

A good value for a name brand piece of equipment. And, I sleep better at night knowing my drives are securely backed up.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Drive died after 14 months, September 26, 2004

By 

TGC Michigan - See all my reviews

This review is from: Western Digital External USB 2.0 120GB Hard Drive (WD1200B005-RNx) (Personal Computers)

I bought this drive last summer and it worked OK for about a year. This month it started making a clicking sound and would not read the drive. I sent it out for recovery and found out that it suffered from a severe head crash where the drive head actually damanged the media surface on the drive causing all of my data to be unrecoverable. I do not backup my primary machine every day so I lost a lot of unrecoverable files that I had since removed from my primary machine.

The main problem with this device is that it does not have a power on/off switch. It is always on unless you unplug it. I use it infrequently and found that sometimes the disk and fan would be spinning when I did not even have my machine plugged into it. I think this fried the unit prematurely. Next time I buy a backup device I will make sure it has an on/off switch and I will isolate it from all of my other devices (do not use with USB hub).

Now I guess I need to buy two backup drives and have a backup of the backup of the backup. After having lost 3 hard drives over the last 15 years, all I can say is that all hard drives eventually fail. Never leave your data on only one device. I am going out today to buy two smaller backup drives instead of one large one. That way I will have redundant backup of my backups.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quite literally, this is a perfect product., May 30, 2004

By 

Roger J. Buffington (Huntington Beach, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Western Digital External USB 2.0 120GB Hard Drive (WD1200B005-RNx) (Personal Computers)

It is rare that I will use the word "perfect" to describe a product, but this Western Digital 120 GB USB 2.0 external HDD is without any flaws that I could detect. I literally had it set up and running on my PC in about 2 minutes. It installed on my Windows XP system instantly and automatically. No install disk (for us to misplace) is necessary. "Plug and Play" is no longer "Plug and Pray." I use mine for archiving digital photos, and it is perfect for that. Further, it is small enough to take on trips, and its effortless plug and play characteristics mean that you can hook the HDD up to say, a very cheap notebook computer and archive large numbers of digital photos. That's what I do.

Hard Disk Drive technology is approaching perfection, and this very reasonably priced unit is a wonderful value. Before I'm done no doubt I'll own a couple of these beauties.